Phillies snap losing skid, beat Marlins 5-4

MIAMI — Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, at least when your baseball team is in a perilous nosedive and staring a seventh straight loss in the face.

It certainly seemed that the Phillies were headed to that when an ill-used Jake Diekman coughed up a one-run lead in bottom of the eighth to the Marlins Thursday. However, a leadoff walk in the ninth by Tony Gwynn Jr. and a pair of bad fielding decisions by Miami second baseman Donavan Solano helped the Phillies score two runs and avoid a sweep with a 5-4 victory at Marlins Park.

Gwynn’s walk was followed by a fly out by Cody Asche, but Ben Revere slapped a single through the right side that allowed Gwynn to get to third. Marlins closer Steve Cishek dumbly allowed Revere to steal second without doing much to keep him honest, and Jimmy Rollins followed with a grounder to second that might have been double-play worthy if Revere were still on first.

Instead, it scored Gwynn. Not only that, the Phils got a bonus when Solano unwisely threw home instead of taking the out at first. And that wouldn’t even be Solano’s worst defensive play of the inning.

That came on the next grounder to him off the bat of Chase Utley. This certainly should have been an inning-ending double play, but Solano failed to get the ball out of his glove, panicked and threw to first as Revere scampered home with the go-ahead run.

That helped cover up what had been a bad choice of relievers to take over for starter Kyle Kendrick when the Phils entered the bottom of the eighth with a 3-2 lead.

Even though the Marlins had three right-handed hitters – Ed Lucas, Giancarlo Stanton and Casey McGehee – coming to the plate, Sandberg opted for southpaw Jake Diekman, who has become his de facto set-up man.

Of course, Sandberg has had a pair of right-handers – Justin De Fratus and Ken Giles – giving him lights-out efforts in recent weeks. So in a situation where a heart of the order is loaded with right-handed bats, it would seem that Diekman might not be the guy.

It turned out he shouldn’t have been. Lucas and Stanton opened the inning with singles, and when Casey McGehee tapped a grounder to first, Lucas scored the tying run from third.

It got worse when the Marlins sent right-handed-hitting Jeff Baker to the plate against Diekman. He slammed a triple off the right-center field wall, scoring Stanton with the go-ahead run.

Yet these are the Marlins, and for as many shortcomings and bad decisions as the Phillies make, the Fish aren’t opposed to stinking up the joint like a mackerel rotting in the back seat of an unventilated car, either.